Catawba, the River, N. C. THE CATAWBA RIVER. YROWNING the distance pure, the mountains lie, Now full of glory in the rising morn: In these cool summits basking in the sky Like shining clouds, O river! thou art born; And frost is busy in the dell From which thy feeble waters well. But let me roll away this winter dress, Thy birthplace in the snow-clad peak. A rocky palace in eternal shade, All wildly roofed with tufts of brightest green, A veil of leaves its only sky. And at its foot still tenderer is the moss: The flowers creep down in huddling ranks around, And fairy odors all about they toss ; Cradling in beauty thus that faintest sound Thy gurgling voice all softly makes, When first the darkness it forsakes. Oh, in that nest woven with gentle hues Thy trembling life all feebly is begun; Child of the sunny showers and nightly dews! From such a home thy devious race thou 'lt run: Like all things else upon the earth, The purest at thy place of birth. * And soon thou art a lovely brook, revealing The silent deer about thee come to drink, Where'er the mossy sward slopes from the hills: In thy rich fringe that casts unbroken shade From this thy darkest, calmest home of all, The crimson birds, and birds of blue, 'Tis there thou seest first the azure sky, - In thy new freedom proud and strong. And, curving round the brown and rocky steeps, Through fruitful valleys next thou wilt resound; Alive with feeding herds and snowy sheep; To thee a human welcoming. Such art thou here, now quiet in the woods, And now in rapids roaring to the fields; Now curling round the rocks in hissing floods, And now the lowland smoother passage yields: A river proud and turbulent, In many a curve and angle bent. And on for many a mile, such art thou still; Urging thy passage with unerring skill, To make the home of waters, too, thine own; To be in its deep bosom lost. Thy course is calmer far in yonder land In wreaths of gold, the woods within. There, in the gloomy swamps the black pools lie, And in the shining pond each cone-like base - The slim trunks shooting toward heaven's brighter face, Whose other selves down into darkness go: And all is, like a picture, still; Fixed thus, beneath the Master's will. There, too, the forest roof is hung in gray, And warn our all too venturous race. Through such a land, O river! dost thou roll, * * John Steinfort Kidney. Chancellorsville, Va. THE WOOD OF CHANCELLORSVILLE. THE ripe red berries of the wintergreen In this deep, tangled wood. I stop and lean And rest me in this shade; for many a mile, I've walked with weary, weary feet, And now I tarry mid this woodland scene, 'Mong ferns and mosses sweet. Here all around me blows The pale primrose. I wonder if the gentle blossom knows The feeling at my heart, the solemn grief, So whelming and so deep That it disdains relief, And will not let me weep. |